Superior Hiking Trail - Introduction to the next Wanderloon Travel Series

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Due to logistics and other reasons, mainly fire-related, I was not able to complete the SHT this summer, so while I will be sharing the parts I did complete, this will not be a finished series this year.

Superior Hiking Trail

Introduction

Once I finished the Minnesota Hiking Club (and the Passport Club the next day), I spent a solid month just chasing those precious "Verified Complete" badges on my AllTrails account. For a while, it was nice to just pick a random place and go from there, and it was a relief to be able to focus on birding and Geocaching (or Adventure Labs... Mostly Adventure Labs). But, Autism Brain thrives much better with a focus, a goal, a map to highlight, and something active to pursue. 

Within weeks of the Hiking Club's conclusion, I was losing my grip a bit. I mostly stopped traveling, as the four thousand miles I'd driven in the final span of the speedrun wore me down for a while. Then, there was a planned long-distance hike with my friend K, and given that I did the entire Minnesota Hiking Club as a solo hiker (because who else was going out in the -17 weather with me?), I was thrilled to have a companion, and we were both equally joyous over hiking with someone who could keep up with each other for long distances. We did the Prairie and Deer Valley Loop, a 15.5 trek through Afton State Park. 

Now, I know you're asking, did I enjoy that one more than the ho-hum ice dance I did on their Hiking Club trail? The answer to that question is very well a definite... maybe. 

While waiting for those verified complete badges to come through, as well as through the many conversations I had with K, an old, familiar urge reignited my professional wandering spirit. An urge that involved long distances, blazes on trees, and an odd sense of home that I felt for a tiny section of a familiar trail far before I even knew what hiking was; the Appalachian Trail was calling to me. 

I'd talked myself out of that dream many times. Not that I didn't think I could do the hike or find a way to make it work with time and finance, that was never the issue. Sleeping outside and using the woods as a bathroom though? For all the skills and other outdoorsy characteristics I'd pursued and gained on my own, those had yet to envelop me. Growing up right next to the AT though, walking around on that small branch of it when kids were still allowed to leave the yard without parents being arrested for negligence, something about it just ached in my soul. 

That brought my thoughts back to a more local pursuit, one that I could reasonably challenge without the necessity of sleeping outside or taking months off work: the Superior Hiking Trail. The blue blazes not only greeted me warmly on the North Shore Hiking Club runs, but I'd tried small sections the previous summer without realizing how remote and rugged it was. 

Now, with those six sections of map just begging to be highlighted, I had my new active focus. 

Superior Hiking Trail: You're next! 

Minnesota State Parks Revisited - Afton State Park

 

Afton State Park

Date Hiked: April 12th, 2025

Trail Hiked: Prairie and Deer Valley Loop

Distance Hiked: 16.7 miles

Elevation Gain: 1801 feet

Duration: 5h 49m

This is one of the few hikes for which I can say someone joined me.

My friend, I'll call them K, had followed me on AllTrails for quite a while, and we'd exchanged comments and stories, yet never quite seemed to run into each other at the same time. Finally, we planned a hike in advance, as they were heading to Colorado soon and needed a training hike for the elevation gain. They were hoping someone could keep up with them for an intense, long hike, specifically choosing the Prairie and Deer Valley Loop trail at Afton State Park, which is rated as one of the best and most difficult single day hikes in Minnesota. This would be my first trail labeled as Hard on the difficulty settings, and I was more than delighted to have a companion.

We met early in the morning on April 12th, which was going to be an unseasonably warm day on a weekend, and I'd warned K that the parking lot would fill up fast and we'd need to get started before the trails were flooded with tourists and casuals. K and I had never met before, yet we were instantly friends within minutes of setting out. Most of the time on hikes I don't speak a word. On this hike, I don't think either of us stopped speaking the entire time, and K was delightful company. I'm so grateful they invited me on this journey. We're both used to the phrase "I can't keep up with you," and we know how to meet people where they are. But, being that we're also both avid, frequent hikers, this was one where we were able to say "hardest trail, long distance, let's fucking go." And we did.

The trail starts off at the same place the Hiking Club one does, but instead of turning onto the prairie walk, it disappears way out in the woods. While driving into Afton gives you an idea of the scale of this park, nothing truly captures its massive size than the trail that seems to reach every corner of its boundaries. Shaped like Marge Simpson midway through bowling the 7th frame, making the right turns in several places would be difficult on its own, but K and I were so caught up in our conversation that we wandered off course more than once. Given that I spoke fewer words than parks I hiked for the Hiking Club journey, this was a delightful surprise for which I was not registering a complaint. I don't have many people that can keep up with my hiking speed and distance, and there aren't many people with whom I can carry an hours-long conversation either. This was pleasant serendipity in more ways than one. Sometimes you just know your people when you meet them. 

The Hiking Club trail at Afton is an appetizer for the many this one intersects. The 2 miles can't compare to the 16.7 mile sojourn, but it enticed me! 

Minnesota Hiking Club #1 - Cascade River State Park

 

Minnesota Hiking Club

#1 - Cascade River State Park

Date Hiked: January 4th, 2025

Other Hikes That Day: Tettegouche State Park, Temperance River State Park

Wanderloon Ranking System Score: 4.42

I woke up feeling dangerous. 

Of course my number one-ranked hike was going to be in the January 4th trilogy. I told you all along what that day's hikes meant, beyond the Hiking Club accomplishments themselves, but to me as a person overcoming ridiculously loud demons trying to destroy me from within. 

Is this technically a mountain? By Minnesota standards, I suppose it is. By Washington standards? It's a nice hill, but don't mistake that comparative analysis for being an easy climb. I could easily say that I climbed a nice hill, but instead I'm going to say this:

I climbed a fucking ice mountain in a -20 polar vortex after two strenuous hikes already that day! Fight me! 

614 feet of elevation gain can be hard, but imagine doing it on pure ice. 3.2 miles can be difficult, but imagine doing it when the temperatures are low enough to merit severe weather advisories. The weather could get doppelgänger Cooper'd for all I cared, it didn't stop me. I'm not saying it was a smart decision, but I did it. 

I pulled up in the parking lot at 3pm. Sunset was at 4:30pm, and the estimated time of completion was 1 hour, 30 minutes. No time for rest. And there's no way the temperature didn't drop even lower by the time I finished. I have no problem putting myself over for how difficult this was on even an experienced hiker like myself. I made it to Lookout Mountain as the sun was beginning to set, knowing I'd have an intense descent over rough terrain and a less-maintained trail. I still took a few minutes to vibe and take in the views of the Big Lake and the forest. Even with that, I made it down in time. Barely, but I did. 7 minutes to spare, to be exact.

By this time, my knees were swollen from the three hikes with considerable elevation gain, my skin hated me for the exposure to temperatures comparable to the location of the Edmund Fitzgerald in its current condition, and I had updated precisely no one on my activities so they couldn't talk me out of it.

Instead of filling them in right away, I made the drive to my favorite small town, Grand Marais. Like this park I'm sure, probably filled with tourists and hoards of people when the weather is good, I instead got to take in a Grand Marais sunset with only a few others.   

What I'd just done, at Cascade River and on that day, was dangerous, ill-advised, and unnecessary. But, if you've gathered nothing else from these 67 stories: 

Doing things the hard way, alone, without help, and without telling someone the danger I was in is who I am as a person, for better and worse. 

I am E.A. Moon, the Wanderloon. 

I love you. You know who you are. 

Sorry I didn't tell you until afterward. 

But...

Seriously...

Would you expect anything different from me?

NOTE: This piece was written on April 11th, 2025, concluding this series more than three months before the every-other-day posts will reach this entry So, if you need further proof of the "who I am as a person" claim, note that I wrote about the Hiking Club the same way that I did the club itself: faster than anyone needed to in a way nobody asked me to do, but I worked so far ahead for no other reason than I could and I chose to.

Minnesota Hiking Club #2 - Whitewater State Park

 

Minnesota Hiking Club

#2 - Whitewater State Park

Date Hiked: January 6th, 2025

Other Hikes That Day: Carley State Park

Wanderloon Ranking System Score: 4.33

You only get 2.2 miles credit for this hike? That can't be right. 

Before starting this hike, I was in the unique position of seeing an office not only open, but staffed. The information and dioramas inside are awesome and really give you a feel for the area's landscape and wildlife. The wonderfully friendly ranger working there advised me that the trail shouldn't have much ice. Even the sign entering the trail warns you that the difficulty is considerable. 

Then, something that would've been near impossible a day or two earlier, I had to carefully step over concrete blocks in the river to cross. On ice two days ago, that would've been sick. Then, the trail goes straight incline the whole way up, but the quality of the trail was greatly increased due to the lack of ice. The demons were still rampaging in my mind, despite my "woke up feeling dangerous" trilogy two days before. But, maybe peering out over the heights of the bluffs gave me a little more unexpected boldness, both in hiking and personal interaction. Instead of reading too much into a message I got where I normally would've, I instead chose to believe the words I was given. With a mind prone to running wild and filling in the blanks with the worst of possibilities, this was not only something I was choosing to do in order to avoid consequences or self-initiated spirals, but because therapy was beginning to work and I chose to believe someone I love when they said so. I know this is incredibly vague, but trust me when I say that it was a transformative act for a worrisome person prone to paranoia in the unspoken like myself. 

It doesn't matter what came before, I've felt pain and I wanted more, I'm not settled until I've done it all and right...

Overcoming giant ass bluffs is just like silencing the mean voices in your head that conjure paranoid thought spirals that aren't there; it's extremely hard to do at first, but the more times you train, to take things one step at a time, to breathe, to believe what someone tells you, to trust your footing, to build up the endurance for when things get difficult, the payoff is worth the trials and tribulation of the fight. Trekking up that hill is a bitch, but seeing the rest of the park from atop the rocky bluffs would be impossible without putting in the work to do that without fear, same as it is to trust someone rather than allow the worst trauma of your mind to convince you that someone who loves you actually hates your guts and doesn't give a shit. You can't do it without practice, failure, hard times, wanting to give up, and times of strain on others and yourself, but to use a cliche that I nonetheless mean: 

You got this. 

Seeing a trail labeled "difficult" a year earlier might've made me reconsider. 

I got this. 

Minnesota Hiking Club #3 - Glacial Lakes State Park

 

Minnesota Hiking Club

#3 - Glacial Lakes State Park

Date Hiked: February 25th, 2025

Other Hikes That Day: None

Wanderloon Ranking System Score: 4.33

What do you hear, Starbuck (Minnesota)?

Nothin' but the rain, Sir. 

I could've unwisely attempted this hike after I felt the air at Monson Lake drop 20 degrees in a few minutes, but then I wouldn't have had this life-changing moment of solitude. 

I experienced all four seasons in a single 5-mile hike, though a confusing sign led me to add an extra mile along a ridge that was not part of the Hiking Club trail. I could've looked at my AllTrails map, but I was lost in the spectrum of joy that I couldn't yet explain. Starting off climbing an icy hill, it gave way to mud that was much harder through which to trek in ice spikes, and the ice melted enough to be running water by the time I finished off the stem before the loop. The autumn vibes of crunching leaves were still present in later wooded areas, but the summer on my skin commenced at the pinnacle of this Hiking Club trail in ways that are difficult to truly communicate. I have it on video, but as I have chosen to remain anonymous for this series, I won't be sharing that part of it here.

I don't know why. It could've just as easily been any hike, but giant brown rolling hills, the geography of glacial lakes past and present, splendorous views of the rurality below, or maybe I was finally seeing the light in my soul after midnight crested over my heaviest of tears, but it happened nonetheless.

I could've been mad about all the dog shit on the trail, which I guess people just leave when it's cold because that makes it okay. I could've compared the glacial potholes to those of Taylor's Falls and lamented the lack of rocky riverside ridges. I could've even been annoyed by how hard it was to pull my spikes out of incredibly soft, spongy mud.

Instead, I let me out. The real me. The E.A. Moon hidden behind the foggy night. Fluorescent joy and eccentric movements, skipping along the path without a care in the world, ripping my shirt off in the sun and unleashing unfiltered joy from the aerial position atop the crest while only wearing a sports bra. I was fearless as Kara Thrace, shameless and joyous all the same, refusing to take the shitty hand dealt to me and (metaphorically) punching my alleged superior right in the fuck rather than bend to its demands of conforming and toning it down. 

I didn't see a single person along this hike, and perhaps many chose other places to spend this unseasonably warm day. That's fine, the only people I wanted to see were far away. That's why I recorded the unfiltered elation of the real E.A. Moon leaving the foggy clouds behind for them to see. Glacial Lakes State Park was transformative, atop a land geographically transformed by glaciers retreating. 

My spiritual handcuffs of restrictive ice were also forced into retreat. 

No regrets. 

Minnesota Hiking Club #4 - Blue Mounds State Park

 

Minnesota Hiking Club

#4 - Blue Mounds State Park

Date Hiked: February 11th, 2025

Other Hikes That Day: Split Rock Creek State Park

Wanderloon Ranking System Score: 4.33

Tied for the longest (official) Hiking Club trail with several others, I was already distressed and troubled. Kindness saved the day from making it even worse, as you'll have read in my Split Rock Creek essay, but I couldn't have predicted the kind of epiphanic hike would befall me in the least expected of places. 

I mean, I could've hired Karl Weathers for any PR issues, but he did shake Reagan's hand after all the trash he talked under his breath. Keeping your eye out for Hanzee Dent is key to staying alive, for you never know where the Butcher of Luverne is going to pop up. Ed and Peggy were at home being useless, as usual. Lou and Hank were with Betsy and Molly for supper by the time I got there. I did have a knife to stab Dodd right in the shoulder if I got the chance, but alas, stupidity lives. (If you haven't seen the second season of Fargo, just trust that the location of this park is relevant to the story.)

A slow ascent over a massive hill, where there's allegedly bison nearby doing buffalo stuff, and the flat lands below emerge beneath the ridge on which you walk. Snow-covered majesty and land stretching miles beneath the mesa-esque traverse, the Blue Mounds Hiking Club trail gives the feeling of being on top of the world, isolated for miles, and protected from the things that ail you for a little while. Not the cold or the wind, but the aches and pains of the soul that linger long after the worst of it makes its full impact, sometimes you just gotta go stand on some cool ass rocks and let the world be beneath you. 

The mounds of the blue variety stand out, especially in the white landscape of winter's doldrums. Stacked ridges and unexpected prairie panoramas decorate the elevated position, reminiscent of a giant palanquin over the lands that are covered in wildflowers and and pear cacti at times where the temperature isn't cursed by a minus. Still as a snapshot, the wind numbing my hands even as they're covered in gloves, the dread of driving from Luverne to the Twin Cities on a spare looming back in the parking lot, I took the time to instead rejoice in the magnificence and kindness I'd been given on a day that could've just as easily been wrecked and unproductive. 

It isn't an easy Hiking Club trail. It's long like Myre-Big Island but not as flat. There's elevation gain, but nothing nearing the difficulty of similar-length Beaver Creek Valley. There are majestic views, without a tower to climb like Sibley. There's no lighthouse at the end like Split Rock Lighthouse. And yet, on a day where no human would be advised to hike on the prairie, and under circumstances where turning back would be understandable and forgiven, I instead chose to finish my second hike of the day just as darkness fell. 

I'm so glad I did. 

Minnesota Hiking Club #5 - Jay Cooke State Park

 

Minnesota Hiking Club

#5 - Jay Cooke State Park

Date Hiked: March 8th, 2025

Other Hikes That Day: George C. Manitou State Park, St. Croix State Park

Wanderloon Ranking System Score: 4.33

As the notes of "Out of Time" by Kalax played through my halo headphones, I crossed the amazing bridge over jagged rocks and snow-covered ridges to the Jay Cooke State Park Hiking Club trail. My longest hike ever, 22 miles on the nearby Munger Trail, had taken me by this park before, but at a time where I was... to put it generously... detached from reality. 

Do you know, do you know, time is running out for me and you, so what you gonna do?

Cool. Ass. Rocks. The Swinging Bridge was a moment all on its own, highlighting Silver Creek flowing underneath the ice. The weather was incredibly nice, but I got there early enough that the crowds hadn't yet swarmed this obviously popular weekend destination. By the time I finished, that would no longer be the case. 

Just take my hand, may I have this dance tonight? Just take a chance, before we run out of time.

My mind was full, and not just with calculations of how to finish the Hiking Club before my self-imposed arbitrary deadline looming two weeks in the future. An extremely traumatic event had shook me to my core, and I lay with a decision to be made at this point in my life: retreat back into the shell, fold myself up, and fade away. Or. Turn up the volume, live my life out loud, and stop trying to be who everyone else wanted me to be? A box I never wanted, or the person who skips on a trail and sings in the rain?

This one moment, that only comes once in a life. Let's fall in love before we run out of time.

3.5 miles along the Silver Creek, over crunchy ice, in the deep woods, and along rocky ridges, my mind wasn't truly taking in and appreciating the splendor with which I was blessed at a time with no hoards of people swarming around, the person I've always been remained protected in the fog as I tried desperately to know what was the right thing to do. I had love in my life, that was not the problem. But at this point, I wasn't 20 anymore and didn't have all the time in the world to stall, settle, and wait for the chance to do what my heart overwhelmingly wanted. 

Do you know, do you know, just how hard it is to play it cool and numb with you? I love the way moonlight passes on your summer dress and prettier shine from the darkness, only you. Just take my hand... 

Would I ever have the chance again? Would life ever present a better opportunity to break the mold? To embrace the chance, to dance before I ran out of time? It would be so easy to hide, to put the mask back on. Would I make up my mind?

Just take a chance, before we run out of time.

Well, you're reading this story right now, aren't you?